5 Big Stocks to Trade for Gains This Week

BALTIMORE ( Stockpickr) -- No news is proving to be good news for stocks in November. The problem is that there's news hitting Wall Street again this morning.

Europe is officially back in a recession for the second time in four years, as the ongoing drama in countries like Greece offsets paltry GDP gains in Germany and France. EU markets are taking the news mostly in stride this morning, the STOXX 50 only off 55 basis points as I write. Meanwhile, U.S. stocks are keeping up the correction that's been in force since October.

But not everything is moving lower right now. A handful of big stocks have promising trading setups popping up this week, which is why we're taking a technical look at five new must-see charts today.

Technicals are a study of the market itself. Since the market is ultimately the only mechanism that determines a stock's price, technical analysis is a valuable tool even in the roughest of trading conditions. Technical charts are used every day by proprietary trading floors, Wall Street's biggest financial firms, and individual investors to get an edge on the market. And research shows that skilled technical traders can bank gains as much as 90% of the time.

First up is Facebook (FB) . I feel like every time I mention Facebook, I need to preface it by saying that I'm no fan of this stock . Yes, there are plenty of factors working against this firm right now, and they've all been beaten to death. But with Facebook's shares showing some technical strength this week, it doesn't really matter how anyone feels about the stock -- there's a trade to be made here.

Yesterday, Facebook surprised everyone when it rallied more than 12% after its lockup expired. But in the context of FB's recent price action, the move isn't hugely surprising -- FB has been slowly forming an ascending triangle bottom since August.

This setup is formed by horizontal resistance at $23.50 and uptrending support coming in below shares. As FB bounces in between those two technical price levels, it's getting squeezed closer and closer to a breakout above that resistance level at $23.50 -- when that happens, we've got a buy signal.

Market momentum , measured by 14-day RSI, has been giving us some extra evidence towards the setup in FB -- it's been in an uptrend since early August, well before the bullish setup in shares was fully formed.

Since momentum is a leading indicator of price, that's a good sign. I wouldn't touch FB until $23.50 gets broken. Even then, keep a tight stop .

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